Russell Hume has gone into administration, following health inspections

20 February 2018

JD Wetherspoon and Greene King will have to find another meat supplier after KMPG has been called in to act as the administrator for Russell Hume, the meat supplier.

The collapse follows an investigation by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) last month which found breaches of regulations and mis-labelling. Speaking last month, the FSA said: “Following an unannounced inspection of Russell Hume’s Birmingham site on 12 January, we became aware of instances of serious non-compliance with food hygiene regulations.”

The investigation forced the company to halt production meaning that restaurants, hotels and pubs around the country had to stop serving meat. There was no steak for Weatherspoons steak night!

Chris Pole, a partner at KPMG and joint administrator, said: “The recent product recall and halt in operations has caused significant customer attrition and trading difficulties, which in turn has led the directors to take the decision to place the company into administration.

“Regrettably, with little prospect of production restarting on site, a total of 266 people have been made redundant. Our priority over the coming days will be to work with all affected employees to provide the assistance they need in claiming monies owed from the Redundancy Payments Office.”

KMPG will be seeking buyers for the business and its assets. For guidance on how to buy a business in administration see our guide

Directors at Russell Hume have called the action taken by the FSA unfair and “out of proportion”

The company told the BBC, "The fact that its investigations have become industry-wide and a number of other firms have also had issues strongly suggests there is a lack of clarity in the industry and in current FSA guidelines.

"Prior to this, we had a long, unblemished record for supplying quality meat products."

See the video below if you are an employee of the company

This video will explain your rights as an employee if the business you work for has become insolvent. This is a worrying time and for further information please refer to ourguide for employeeson our website. At the end of the video there is a link to the government website which explains things further.

Just a quick note to say a big thank you to all the staff at KSA, our CVA was passed today by creditors voting in an overwhelming number including HMRC to accept the proposal as prepared by KSA.

The road to reach today’s conclusion has been bumpy, but at each stage your team has supported and guided us through the issues and we have reached a very satisfactory outcome to the benefit of customers, staff, all creditors and shareholders.